At 191-pages, not-quite 5 x 7 inches in size, and with a lone person tromping through snow on the cover, “Tinkers” by Paul Harding is so darling, I couldn’t wait to read it.

The title is terribly sweet—sweet enough that a friend mentioned it would be the perfect name for a puppy. And the hype didn’t hurt, either: this year’s Pulitzer winner was picked up by a very small and very young publishing house, the Bellevue Literary Press, after the author received enough rejection letters to make a lesser writer want to throw her laptop onto a bonfire.

(Continue reading on Culture Lust.)